Category: Life Ordinary

  • Home, virtually

    The idea of home has made its presence felt many times on this blog – personal perspectives, as well as its evolution based on the institutional realignment line of thought. In fact, this is one of those topics  which I continue to have many thought wrestling matches on. While home begins as a physical place, as one steps out of it and moves out into the larger world, one realises that it becomes as much a place that is created in the mind.

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    To quote Pico Iyer, “For more and more of us, home has really less to do with a piece of soil than, you could say, with a piece of soul.” The ‘piece of soul’ changes with circumstances and choices – from childhood, landmarks, experiences and so on to a different set of people and places, and a different sense of purpose, for instance. All of this continue to change over time, until probably, at a certain point, you realise the set of places, people and props you’d want around in your final years. But let’s not get morbid ahead of time! 🙂

    To quote Pico again, “Home is not just the place where you happen to be born. It’s the place where you become yourself.” And sometimes it can be both. It also explains why I did not recognise a future home when I saw one – 11 years back, on a screen not very different from this one. That’s what this post is about – to acknowledge the day it all began – 11 years ago. It is also a hat tip to Rediff, where I began my blogging journey (when I spoke at BlogAdda recently, most people didn’t know Rediff used to have blogs) and a nod of thanks to my 25 year old self who had no idea what he was getting into and wrote some horrible verse to start it all off.

    A place that, in a click, helps me travel back in time and shows me people, perspectives and pages, some of whom/which I have outgrown, but have influenced what I am today. Experiences that have shaped the course of my life. A journal of the past which continues to help me shape my narrative – thoughts, to words, to actions, and beyond. A place where I continue to become myself.

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    A piece of my soul that is my consciousness and on many occasions, even my conscience. A homepage that I consider home. 🙂

    until next time, thanks for reading!

  • Mentoring Startups @ Microsoft Ventures’ Accelerator Program

    When I come to think of it, my sales/brand jobs have all been on startup mode, though the organisations themselves were quite established – Dishnet DSL in 2002, WorldSpace in 2003, MidDay Bangalore in 2006, Bangalore Mirror in 2007. Myntra was still a startup when I joined in 2011. I really can’t remember when I first became interested in startups – perhaps Bangalore’s culture of entrepreneurship affected me soon as a landed here – in 2003. But it really started manifesting itself only during my stint at The Times Group. Muziboo was probably among the first I actually interacted with (in 2008) and I still remember sending feedback to Deap for Burrp’s mobile site in 2009.

    It was in 2010, when I started writing the startup column for Bangalore Mirror that I understood why I probably had such a fondness for startups – in them I see individuals who have in some way connected to their purpose in life. That gives them a passion and energy that is amazingly infectious. After the column’s run ended in 2013 (at 97 Bangalore based startups!) I had no official reason to associate with them any longer, though the connections I’d made early on – Zomato, for example – gave me an occasional opportunity to indulge my interest.

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    (via)

    All of this would explain my immense happiness when I was invited to be one of the mentors at the Accelerator Program of Microsoft Ventures last year. The Accelerator is part of a global establishment and helps entrepreneurs launch/scale their startup through a 4 month intense program that begins in January and July every year. At the accelerator, the entrepreneurs get access to quite a few things – a pool of mentors with expertise across various domains, (design, brand, technology, to name a few) office space to work from, and a ton of connections to help them gain funding and scaling opportunities. (FAQ) The other crucial factor they get, and I’ve seen it not getting the attention it deserves, is the Accelerator team itself. I have seen their diligence and their interactions, and they add an enormous amount of value in shaping ideas into executable plans.

    I’ve now been part of the last two batches, mentoring a couple of startups in each batch – TommyJams and Tookitaki in the previous batch, and Imly and Voonik in the current. Respectively operating in the domains of entertainment, advertising, food and fashion, these four by themselves are enough to give you an idea of the diverse kind of startups that make up each batch. Though I’ve worked closely with these, I’ve also had multiple conversations with other startups and have been impressed by the sheer quality of ideas behind many of them, their willingness to learn and reinvent if necessary, and the tenacity with which they execute their plans.

    My role may be that of a mentor, but I’ve learned quite a bit too. My learning has been in many forms – watching the startups in action, understanding at least a part of the intricacies of the domain they operate in, their approach to the challenges they solve, and most importantly, conversations with other mentors. Many of the mentors belong to the investor community and bring with them fantastic perspectives on a wide variety of things.

    It has been an exciting experience for me thus far, and I’ve been planning to write about it for a while now. The immediate trigger came last week  in the form of an invite for the Demo Day of the current batch. I also learned that the Accelerator had started taking applications for the next batch. In my own selfish interest, I’d like to play a role in the life of some entrepreneur out there. If you think you are ‘D’ in the figure below, apply away!

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    (via. Check the superb original deck here. Thanks @m3sweatt for p0inting out )

    Disclosure: In case you’re wondering, mentors don’t get paid, not even to write this! 🙂

  • I won’t be the judge of that!

    A few days ago, S wrote to me that she was going through my old posts and was delighted to find lower caps for ‘i’ , font change for each blog and heavy and careless use of ellipses after every three sentences. The background is that in my professional life I am a stickler for error-free content. Even until a few months ago, I’d have been irritated at myself for this and despite the painful process, would have gone ahead and corrected each post! In fact, as I told her, I had even considered this once. I occasionally refer to my own posts when I’m writing new ones and once, sometime last year, I happened to read one from 2008, with all of the things that S mentioned and more! That’s probably one of the first times that I implemented something I’d been wanting to for quite a while – stop being judgmental and to be comfortable with myself – past and present.

    There’s a back story to that as well. My judgmental nature had been on an ascendant for quite a while, and coupled with a temper and wit/sarcasm, I realised that I was hurting people. As is my wont, I analysed a bit and figured that at the base of it was the fact that I was extremely unforgiving of myself. Since I drove myself to those levels, I took a higher ground and berated others when they didn’t live by those standards, across various life situations. I also understood that the work had to begin internally before I could manifest it to/on others. It wasn’t easy to forgive myself in the beginning, but I got the hang of it gradually.

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    (The Kite Runner)

    This was, and continues to be, a bit tricky. How does one maintain objectivity when being kind on oneself? When does it slide into laziness? The way I deal with it is to try and understand the relative importance of an incident in the larger scheme of things. Carrying it forward to other people was a much easier task, especially when I paused for a moment and made myself understand that behind every behaviour there is a story. The challenge here is to make sure others don’t take advantage of the new found benevolence! If you’ve gotten thus far, you’d be able to handle it.

    During a recent offsite, my current boss said I was one of the most unflappable people he knew. Huge compliment, and one I totally cherished, not only because of my history in this context and therefore my progress, but also because I actually think he is one of the most composed people I’ve come across! This also allows me to bring up a related subject – praising others. One of the side effects of being harsh on myself was that I became stingy with praise. I think it was Surekha who first pointed this out to me. In Em and the Big Hoom, I saw some lovely words, and have tried to live by them.

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    “Anything else makes you less.” That’s probably a judgment right there, but we’ll let it pass. These days, I try to praise – not for the sake of it, but by being a little more open to it. I also try not to judge. Even if I do, I keep it to myself, and make it as transient as possible. In the era of Twitter, this does become quite challenging! It is still a work in progress, and most likely will remain that way always, but I like to think that I have gained some ground. The mantra these days is

    quote-Wayne-Dyer-when-you-judge-another-you-do-not-42355

    until next time, judge dread!

  • A measure of helplessness

    A while back, I’d seen a Malayalam movie titled Pigman. Not really a typical movie by any standards, and that explains the poor performance at the box office. It is the story of a young man whose life pretty much becomes an abyss. (spoiler) The movie starts with him pursuing a doctorate in linguistics but failing to get it because of his research guide, who is miffed at him rejecting her advances. He sees no point in continuing and thanks to his family’s dire financial circumstances, is forced to take a job. He gets a clerical job at a pig farm courtesy a friend. A series of altercations with the corrupt management gets him demoted to the lowest job in the system – that of a pigman. He continues his protestations and the movie ends with him losing his mental faculties after being given electric shocks.

    It is a depressing story, and one can really feel his helplessness as his life spirals downwards degree by degree. In fact, the entire theme of the movie is failures in life, and it is as though, the intent is to drive home the point that some lives are meant to be lived in a continued state of helplessness.

    I think we have all felt helpless at some points in time, in varying degrees. Helpless in traffic (probably tactical helplessness, for the lack of a better word) at one end to probably the other extreme of watching a loved one die and not being able to do anything to prevent it or alleviate the suffering. I couldn’t help but compare it against what I’d call (again for the lack of a better word) chronic helplessness -a life consistently going down in quality (defined in this context as standard of living) – like the life of Pigman’s protagonist. In turn, I also couldn’t help but compare this to someone who has never had a decent standard of life. I wondered whether, among the last two, the last was better – if one hadn’t really experienced a higher standard of living, one wouldn’t know what one was missing, and therefore the suffering would be lesser than someone who had experienced it earlier, but could no longer do so because of circumstances.

    And that is the really enigmatic thing about this business of living – there is no objective measure of mental anguish. If there were, probably we’d be better at helping those less fortunate than us. That would at least be a step up from feeling helpless at the injustice of it all. Help more, to feel less helpless. Sounds like a plan?

    until next time,

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  • @ #WIN14

    BlogAdda and I go a long way back, practically to around the time they were born, and when I was asked to be a speaker at #WIN14, there really was no question of not going. The icing on the cake was being a part of this excellent list of speakers!

    My favourite talk of the day was delivered by one Kavi Arasu, who, first virtually and then really, has become a very good friend. As I tweeted

    Meanwhile, I was part of a session whose subject was ‘Influence of Blogging’ and my fellow speakers were Lakshmipathy Bhat and Anaggh! The areas I tried to cover in 15 minutes were the changing nature of influence, its effect on brands, how blogs can help in that context and how bloggers can create a market for themselves.  (does that explain the breathlessness? 😀 ) Do take a look and let me know your feedback.

    Shekhar Kapur made his presence felt in the second half by being his usual articulate self. His analogy of crests and troughs, and tsunamis, to explain media cycles, time, and social was just fantastic. He had the audience spellbound, and deservedly so.

    It was wonderful to meet people,  some of whom I knew online, but had never met – Anaggh, Maneesh, Kalyan, Ankita, Rakesh, and others whom I got acquainted with at the event   – Ravi Subramaniam, Ashwin Mushran, (what a fantastic compering role he played!) Anuradha Goyal, Amit Agarwal, Sampath Iyengar and Anil P.

    A big thanks to BlogAdda for putting together a great event (photos) and having me over, and to Courtyard by Marriott, who were great hosts!